


black holes replaced by stars

by Nakimochiku



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Amnesia Recovery, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:04:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1604492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eren looks at him as though to make sure he's the right Marco Bodt with retrograde amnesia, as opposed to some alien duplicate. Marco tries to smile."</p><p>Or, Marco was in an accident, but this story has less to do with the black holes the accident caused, and more to do with the stars that replaced them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	black holes replaced by stars

_I_

Marco has a massive scar along the back of his neck. Eren strokes it the entire cab ride home, just sliding his fingers up and down pink new skin, so gently it feels like he’s touching a baby bird. Marco just leans on his shoulder, and hopes the doctors have left explaining certain parts of his condition to him.

“We’re home.” Eren whispers, and Marco blinks awake, looking around at the forest of condos and sad patches of winter ravished grass. It’s familiar, in that vague way grandparents’ summer cottages are familiar, toeing the line of nostalgia and concrete memory. But then, everything has felt that way since the accident. That feeling comes and goes like waves of nausea.

Looking at Eren almost always makes the feelings worse.

The inside of the condo smells like banana bread and lemon cake. There’s a welcome home banner pasted to the window. It’s nice, good, wholesome. “Mikasa made the banana bread last night. I give no guarantee on the flavour, but she worked really hard, so have at least a slice.” Eren says as he comes in the door behind him, dumping the bag of stuffed animals brought home from the hospital beside the closet, shrugging out of his jacket.

“Mikasa.” Marco repeats. He knows the name. He thinks he knows the name. He thinks he should know the name. But he draws a blank. Eren frowns. Marco tries to smile.

“Mikasa. My sister. Black hair, black eyes, wicked left sucker punch, world’s shittiest cook?” Eren stands before him, gets right into his face to look into Marco’s eyes, as if to check that he is, in fact, the right Marco Bodt with retrograde amnesia, as opposed to some alien duplicate. Whether he sees something that satisfies him or not, Marco doesn’t know. He just scowls and turns away, heading into the kitchen.

“Eren—“ Marco calls after him, but it feels kinda pointless. What’s he gonna say? Sorry I forgot your sister? He lets it go.

_II_

Jean, Armin, Annie and Mikasa all pile into their small condo. Mikasa is in fact pleased to see that Marco’s had at least a slice of her banana bread, even though it had too much flour and too much salt. He recognizes her, the way one does a family member from reunions. She’s pretty.

Jean he knows instantly, having been friends from middle school. Armin he has vague ideas about. Annie, he doesn’t recognize at all. She catches him staring sometimes while he tries to remember. There should be something in the long line of her nose, the ice of her eyes that should jog his memory. He comes up with an almost frustrating nothing. She just shrugs at him as though to say it’s alright.

Marco tries to think it’s alright too. The doctors said his amnesia would likely improve with time; that mental exercises, therapy and rest ought to do the trick. That doesn’t make Eren’s dark expressions any easier to handle.

He thinks he handled the accident pretty well. He’s got a mean scar for his troubles, but things could be worse. He’s always aware that things could be worse.

It’s not hard to see that Eren’s angry though. At the accident, at his amnesia, at himself. That anger is nothing new. It’s all Marco can do to wrap his arms around him in their shared bed every night, tuck Eren’s head underneath his chin and just hum soothingly until Eren’s shoulders stop trembling. He’s not crying, if anyone asks, but Marco’s pretty sure having a boyfriend with amnesia would be stressful for anyone.

“Want me to give you a blow job?” he asks, settling one hand on the sharp bone of Eren’s hip, rubbing his thumb there.

“Not right now.” Eren sighs, nose a little congested. His cheeks are hot against Marco’s neck, the gusts of his breath wet and shuddering. “Just hold me like this for a little, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

_III_

Marco sort of feels like they’re in The Notebook or something, but fortunately this is reality, and it’s retrograde amnesia, and he’ll get better eventually; that’s his main comfort. His memories aren’t gone; they’re patchy, big and small chunks missing from the whole. He has a vague idea of places he’s been with people he’s loved, things he’s done and words that might have mattered. Sometimes he remembers details, sometimes he doesn’t.

 “I wish you’d never been in that accident.” Eren says into his hair. He sure he must smell bad, he’s only just woken up and has been lazing around on the sofa pretending to reread Harry Potter until Eren crawled over him to curl around him. “I wish I hadn’t made you—“

“Don’t do this to yourself.” Marco trails his fingers over Eren’s hip, kisses the brown skin of his collar bone over his shirt. But Eren pushes his face away, cradles his cheeks between his hands and makes it clear that he won’t just let him kiss away all his regrets. “Don’t do this to yourself.” He repeats. Eren, bless his foolish heart, just glowers and delves right into the pain.

“I wish it’d been me in that fucking accident. I wish I didn’t have to remember all this stuff—“

“Eren, it isn’t that simple—“

Eren kisses him hard. There’s passion in the kiss, to be certain, his nails scraping down his throat and digging into the meat of his shoulder. There’s heat and hate and pain. There’s nothing much Marco can do about any of it. And even if he could, he doesn’t remember how. He thinks maybe he’s not the Marco Eren needs or wants. Maybe with his memories, other pieces have been lost too. Maybe each facet of Eren; how he likes his tea, his favourite movies, the books he reads over and over again, are lost facets of himself.

The idea’s terrifying.

Maybe Eren senses that and kisses him harder, pants against his mouth and bites viciously, like he wants to draw blood. It’s a distraction, to say the least, and Marco combs his fingers through Eren’s hair and pulls him back with him on the sofa, Eren’s weight pushing him into the cushions.

Eren pauses, presses their foreheads together, sighs. “I hate this.”

Marco agrees.

_IV_

Marco thinks he’s the only thing that makes Eren laugh. He was, at least. He sees pictures on facebook of beach adventures and road trips, sees Eren grinning like a freak, like it stretches his face strangely and he doesn’t know what to do with his mouth. It’s adorable. He can see why he came up with the name bright eyes; when the sun sparkles in Eren’s eyes just so, and they glitter a thousand shades of gold and green.

Now, he can’t stand the way Eren’s face darkens when he doesn’t remember things. He knows without knowing, in the way one knows the sea is deep and space is always expanding, that Eren isn’t particularly patient by nature. There’s no point pleading with him to give him time; hopefully, this will all get better with time.

“It’s not you.” Eren admits one night, sitting on the edge of the bed, back to Marco. “It is you. But it’s not you?” He breathes out a frustrated noise through his nose and tries again. “It’s you. It’s my mom. It’s my dad.” Marco sits up, dares to slide his fingers up Eren’s spine, kiss the nape of his neck, rest his nose there.  Well, it hurts him something awful that he causes Eren more pain than his mother’s death and dad’s disappearance combined.  “Why you? Is it because of me--?”

“Shh.” Marco murmurs, wrapping his arms around his waist. “Bad things happen to good people, Eren. Bright Eyes. There’s nothing you can do—“

“That’s not good enough!” Eren snaps. He whirls, shoving Marco back into the mattress. “And it’s not fair! I deserve—“

Marco crushes him to his chest, squeezes his heaving shoulders. “I know.” He says. “I know.” Eren wants to thrash and howl like a wolf. He wants to fight the whole world. He wants to demand of the stars all the things owed to him. Marco holds him close. Eren’s so fucking broken and angry, and Marco hates the universe just a little for making him just another bruise on Eren’s heart, where he was once a balm.

_V_

Marco wakes Eren up with a blowjob. Eren groans, blinks down at him, and just tips his head back to moan, fingers tangling in Marco’s hair and hips lifting into his mouth. Marco thinks he knows the burn of Eren’s cock breaching his throat, the scrape of his nails against his scalp, the way he whimpers and gasps Marco’s name just before he spills into his mouth.

Eren’s back slowly uncurls as he comes down from his high, laying loose and languid on the mussed sheets, fingers dropping from Marco’s hair while he presses kisses to his pelvis. This is the most relaxed Marco’s seen Eren since the accident, and it’s good to know he can reduce him to a mess.

“Good morning.” He says, and grins, when Eren musters up the energy to look at him. Eren blows a raspberry at him, but doesn’t push him away. He brushes questing fingers over Marco’s freckles, his dimples, the curve of his cheek, like he himself is trying to remember all his details.

“I’m wide awake, it’s morning.” Eren sings, all pitch and no tune. Marco tips his head to look at him, hums in question. “Bright eyes. We met at their concert.” He pauses, scowls. All the softness is gone, just hard lines, old anger left in its place. Marco can’t even pretend to know what he’s talking about, and he’s pretty sure that’d just make Eren angrier. “It’s why you call me bright eyes.”

He pushes Marco away, rights his pajama pants to walk into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Marco rubs his hand over his neck, feels the scar, wars with himself, and sidles up to the door. “Eren.” He tries. “I know I can’t remember special parts of our relationship. And I know that hurts you…” he searches for his words, treads carefully. “But isn’t it enough that I remember you?”

“That’s not it.” Eren says loudly through the door, voice spiking in pitch and fury. He sounds angrier that Marco doesn’t understand, and Marco hears a sadder, softer “That’s not what this is about.”

Marco lets his head fall against the bathroom door, wonders if Eren’s just to the other side of it. “I don’t need to know special things about you to know I love you.” It sounds pretty stupid, once he’s said it out loud. He can hear the bathroom counter creaking beneath Eren’s weight, and he rests heavily against the door.

“I told you. It’s not—I just need a moment okay?” he calls through the door. Eren’s quiet and Marco waits. He wants to see his face, he wants to hold him, wants to understand this precisely as it is while watching Eren’s mouth and eyes. “I wasn’t prepared, alright? I didn’t realize how much of us you’d forgotten okay? It hit me hard.”

“Will you come out?” Marco pleads, slides his palm down the grainy wood, fingers tracking grooves in off white paint. Eren’s quiet again, and Marco almost gives up to go make them breakfast, before the door clicks open.

Eren’s wearing an expression that strikes Marco’s right in the heart. And for a second it doesn’t matter if he remembers or doesn’t remember it, all that matters is the pull of Eren’s full mouth, the curl of his brows. “I’ll make you remember. No matter what.” That sounds like the kind of vow Marco can stake his life on.

_VI_

Marco’s never been to Wonderland, not even before the accident. Eren wants to go. Marco’s just happy that Eren’s willing to make new memories with him, instead of dwelling on old ones. They eat stupid expensive funnel cake by the fountains, feel the cool spray and hot sun on their foreheads. It’s all syrup sweet out of season strawberries and powder sugar. Eren eats like he’s afraid Marco will steal it from him, and he gladly gives up more than half the funnel cake to him.

Then it’s just burning skin, the stink of sun screen and chlorine, the ripe heat of too many cooking foods in one place, all while being hurtled through the sky.

Eren loves the biggest rides, the fastest ones, enjoys the thrill. When they get tired, Marco’s content to sit on the carousel and let it go round and round until he can’t even look at the moving painted horses or the revolving scenery without getting nauseous.

The whole two hour car ride home, at dusk, Eren blasts bright eyes CDs and calls it a private concert. He even manages not to look upset when Marco doesn’t remember the lyrics. Even if he had looked upset, Marco doesn’t think he could take him seriously when he’s wearing light up cat ears. He’s bone weary in the best possible way, and late summer breeze toys in his hair, fills his nose with the smell of roasting asphalt. Eren looks beautiful, and Marco leans over to kiss his shoulder, browned from the sun, sticky with dried sweat.

“What the fuck?” Eren bites, but there’s no heat. Marco just hums against his heated skin, watches his ears go red, and grins. The road is empty despite the early hour. They’re out in the middle of no where, just long strips of forest on one hand and farmland on the other. Marco ducks his head to Eren’s lap, going for the fly of his jeans and reaching in. Eren nearly slams on the brakes with a loud curse. “Are you a fucking lunatic?” he howls. “Don’t give me road head you—“

“Like you don’t wanna try it.” Marco laughs, stroking at Eren’s cock until it’s hot and heavy in his hands. He flushes and doesn’t push him away. Marco sucks him off easily, swallows around him with wet slurping noises, not even audible over the bright eyes CD. He doesn’t care much about the awkward angle; he’s pleased instead to see Eren’s hand gripping too tight on the steering wheel, one hand dropping to his hair, little groans of his name sweeter than anything.

Marco draws it out, teases him close to orgasm just to draw back again, and Eren’s pretty helpless while he’s driving. He’s a gooey, horny mess by the time they get home, and they make out in the condo’s underground parking lot for fifteen minutes, Marco knocking Eren’s stupid light up ears from his hair, Eren scrabbling at his clothes for skin to bite into.

“Bedroom.” Marco says against his moist lips, catches Eren’s bottom lip between his teeth. Eren just hums, but neither of them stops kissing.

Marco doesn’t even think he’d let Eren, if he tried, and vice versa.

_VII_

Eren’s in the kitchen, making the whole condo smell of stir fried bok choy and soy sauce. He’d been unable to convince him to put down several bundles when they saw it on sale at the super market; they don’t even like bok choy. He says it’s the asian version of spinach, Marco thinks he’s full of it.  Some days, he’s better with the anger that simmers constantly under his skin like tangible heat.

Some days it’s all Marco can do to keep Eren from throwing plates and smashing windows and tearing the sun from the sky.

Eren’s at his best in the kitchen, Marco has found. He’s content to perch at the kitchen table, rifling through the news paper but paying it no mind as he watches Eren pick through nice stalks of green onions to dice, tossing them into his wok and turning up the heat. “Try it.” Eren says, spearing a wilted green on a fork and holding his hand beneath so it doesn’t drip onto the tiles. Marco obediently opens his mouth for it. It’s all spice and salt to cover the unmistakeable taste of vegetable.

Marco pulls a face and Eren sneers. “How’re you so picky? My mom would have beat my ass black and blue if—“ he goes quiet, turns back to his wok and half heartedly shuffles the vegetables in it. He does that, sometimes: forgets that something hurts him and then brings it up, prodding old bruises. Marco moves behind him to rest his chin on his shoulder, arms wrapping around Eren’s frame like he wants to hold him together. It’s a futile endeavour, he knows. Even if he doesn’t remember, he knows like he knows the colour of the ocean and the sound of Eren’s voice that it’s useless to try and hold him together.

He’s a bit like a ball jointed doll, snapped in places so that all his limbs hang from his sockets by strings, and it’s a miracle he’s still in one piece. Or at least the semblance of one piece.

“I’ll eat it anyway.” Marco offers, kissing the nape of Eren’s neck, up underneath his ear, nuzzling him. Eren stands very still, stiff and pained, before he breathes out from his nose, adds a bit more spice to his bok choy, and leans back into Marco’s arms.

“Damn right you will.”

_VIII_

“What’d you do?” Marco sighs with exasperation, inspecting Eren’s split lip, the swelling at the apple of his cheek and at his temple. He supposes he should feel more lost in this kind of situation; floundering where memories draw a blank, but he finds it easy to look over the wounds, pressing his thumbs to bruises so Eren winces, before going off in search of an icepack or a bag of  frozen peas and some polysporin.

“Why do you assume it was my fault?” Eren snaps, slumping into the kitchen chair and throwing up his legs on the chair opposite. Marco makes a sound like laughing as he moves down the hall. Eren turns to glower at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Marco just laughs a little more, and comes back to the kitchen with a bit of gauze and some alcohol. He thinks he remembers something like this, sitting precisely where he is now, preparing to take care of wounds just like this. He frowns at the memory, his hands, tipping the alcohol over the gauze, go still, letting liquid drip onto the table cloth, and Eren sits up with concern, unsure of whether or not to touch him.

“Hey?” he says gently, fingers curling limply in the air. Marco blinks, blinks again, smiles. “Okay?”

“Do you remember…” Marco starts, and touches his fingers to Eren’s jaw to tip his face closer, dabbing his cuts. “This one time you got into a fight so bad, you were dripping blood all over the kitchen from this massive cut on your head and you kept saying I’m okay like an idiot.”

Eren looks caught somewhere between fondness, sheepishness, pain. “I remember.”  He answers, voice deceptively neutral.

“I had to get you to the hospital, and you needed stitches.” Marco chuckles, but he’s not sure what he finds funny. He’d been terrified that night. He can admit he’s terrified now, even though there’s less blood, less fuss. He stills again, and Eren meets his eyes hesitantly, blinking at him.  “I wish you wouldn’t fight so much.”

Eren sighs through his nose, pulls Marco closer by the back of his neck to rest their foreheads together. Between them, it smells like melting peas and alcohol. “I know.”

_IX_

“Slow down,” Marco gasps, his words and breath swallowed by Eren’s mouth over his, his hips circling provocatively and grinding their clothed erections together. He wants to laugh at Eren’s desperation, his hunger, but this doesn’t really seem like a moment for laughing as he pushes his hands beneath Eren’s shirt to feel smooth skin, ridges of underlying bones.

“Don’t wanna slow down.” Eren says between kisses and moans, tugging at Marco’s shirt, his belt, his hair, hands everywhere, nails biting into his hips and scraping up. Eren can get vicious. Marco’s fairly sure he likes it, likes when Eren pins him down and takes from him like he’s the only thing he needs in order to breathe in an ever expanding universe. Eren’s hunger is heavy and familiar; it’s something he wouldn’t forget no matter how many accidents he was in.

“I’m not gonna disappear,” Marco says laughingly, hands sliding down Eren’s back, into his jeans to grip his ass and push them together, rutting against each other’s thighs like teenagers. Eren pauses, stares at him like he’s a wholly unfamiliar creature, and maybe he is. “I’m not gonna disappear.” He repeats. He tips his head up to catch Eren’s mouth, gentle and slow and warm like embers burning low.

Eren moans brokenly, braces himself above Marco on his elbows and melts into the kiss, their pace slowed so their rocking hips only heighten heat and need but don’t bring them nearly close enough to the edge. “Isn’t this better?” Marco breathes against Eren’s mouth, catching his lips with his teeth.

“You’re such a fucking tease.” Eren groans. Marco laughs, and yeah, he is, because he likes how glazed and fucked out and needy Eren gets when they take things stupid slow, until Eren’s squirming and begging for cock or his hand or his mouth, or anything else. So Marco digs nails into the meat of Eren’s ass, mouth latching onto his throat to suck a wicked hickey there. Eren nearly sings his name between his moans, and it shouldn’t be long now—“Oh my god just fuck me, holy--!”

“Your wish is my command, bright eyes.” Marco laughs, and he gets off on Eren’s need more than anything else.  To be perfectly honest, he gets off on everything that Eren is. They struggle with their pants, leave their shirts rumpled and tugged up because they’re desperate now. Marco struggles for lube from the bedside table, hurriedly slicks his cock and the bud of Eren’s hole before Eren’s pushing him back, aligning them and sliding down. He groans long and loud at the first breach of Marco’s cock, breathing ragged as he sinks onto him like he was born just to take it. “Christ.” Marco groans.

“Just Eren’s fine.” But the jest is lost when Eren looks so thoroughly debauched. His hands settle at Marco’s ribs, and he’s certain Eren can feel the pounding of his heart through his palms, while he sets up an easy pace. Marco’s hands remain on his ass, guiding him up, slow, so slow he thinks they’re both going to burn alive just like this. Eren coos, rolls his hips, muscles clenching and fluttering around Marco’s cock.

“Christ.” Marco says again. He’s a tease, but even he can only handle so much. And Eren, straining and moaning wantonly above him, flushed and sweaty, cock leaking precum onto Marco’s belly, is pretty much his limit. He holds him steady, gets his feet beneath him on the bed so he can fuck up into him with power. Eren shouts, shouts again, moans Marco’s name, his noises blending together and trailing off and hiking up again while Marco just fucks him stupid. He’s on the edge, and he wants Eren to come. “Touch yourself.” He gasps out, and Eren’s hand flies to his cock, leaning forward over Marco’s chest so he has enough leverage to rock back onto Marco’s cock.

“don’tdon’tdon’t--!” Eren says, but Marco doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and then it doesn’t matter cause Eren screams his release, high and broken, come spurting over his fingers and Marco’s chest. He kisses Marco through his orgasm, scraping his teeth over his tongue and swallowing his name, the keen Marco releases as he trips over the edge of orgasm too.

Later, Marco wonders if Eren was telling him “don’t disappear.”

_X_

He’s been out of the hospital for six months. He remembers more now. He still can’t for the life of him remember Annie, though he thinks he recalls the party where they met. Mikasa brings over treats every so often, baked goods and the not so burnt parts of chicken. It’s bland and bad, but she tries so hard Marco can’t help but eat it, if not for the pleased little glint in black eyes.

Remembering and not remembering doesn’t feel so much like nausea. More like the ebb and flow of ocean tides, predictable yet still so uncontrollable. He regains facets of Eren; he likes to wail nineties punk in the shower, he has something up his ass about Superman, Armin gave him his first CD for his birthday. He thinks he remembers facets of himself with them too; the first time he told Eren he loved him, watching Canada day fireworks downtown together, lazing around on the floor together but never touching during the summer because it was far too hot.

“Are you coming?” Eren says at the door. He holds it open with his toe and leans heavily enough on the sliding door of the closet that it threatens to derail. Marco sets down his book, something new he picked up on a whim.

“Where’re you going?”

“Just a drive. I dunno. I want some ice cream and some sunlight before fucking winter comes back.” Marco closes his book on his finger and drapes a sweater over his arm.

“Let’s go to the lake.” Marco pulls him from the apartment, steals Eren’s keys to lock it.

“Which lake?” He trails after Marco, who slings his arm around his shoulders and tugs him close, kisses the crown of his head.

“Any lake. Your favourite lake.”

“Port Dover is literally 4 hours away.” Eren pushes him away, ears turning red.

“Port Dover it is.” He kisses Eren’s cheek. “Four hours is a good long time for talking, right?”

Marco thinks he was a section of space once, maybe before the accident. He was galaxies and nebulae. The accident was a black hole that sucked in every little bit of light, leaving him a gaping void. He’s not particularly sure what happens to black holes when they die. He doesn’t know if they shrink on themselves until they are no more. He’s not sure if black holes can even die. Someday, all his gaping bits will be filled in like a colouring book. Someday, all his black holes will be stars born anew.

He hopes Eren can wait that long.

**Author's Note:**

> yoooooo. i dunno what happened here, but i wanted fluff, boom a bit of porn, rep rep canada yo. funnel cake is the fucking shit, my heart and soul for bad cook mikasa and holy hell does Eren have some issues. and were it not for amnesia, marco would have literally none, that freckled (and headcanon dimpled) little fuck. i apologize for this author's note.


End file.
